The first thing I did on Thursday when I got home was to go to the grocery store. Going to the grocery store was my ritual first stop in every new country I visited, so I guess it made sense. (Also, it was kind of necessary. I'm staying with my parents until the subletter moves out of my apartment, and the entire contents of their fridge was basically a jar of relish and five Parmesan rinds.) The prices were shocking - twenty pesos for a half-pint of blueberries; thirty-five bolivianos for Greek yogurt. I re-set the price scale in my head one last time, using the external cues (comparing similar products, seeing what was on sale) to figure out what was reasonable and filled the cart with the things I'd missed - sharp cheddar cheese, cheap sushi, Anchor Steam beer.
I got to the checkout and piled my purchases on the conveyor belt. The guy scanning my groceries was friendly in a distinctly American way, simultaneously casual and polite. Our conversation was unnervingly easy. I didn't have anything to prove. He wasn't judging my Spanish or my foreignness, there were no fruits I had forgotten to weigh, no chance I had accidentally gotten into the line for pregnant women and the disabled elderly. I told him I had gotten off a plane from Argentina a couple of hours ago.
"So what did you miss most while you were traveling?" he said
I couldn't think of an answer. There isn't much someone can't live without for three months, and the things that I came up with were just too embarrassing to say out loud - my Frye boots; Glee; having a cell phone. I finally gave him both the truest and the most boring answer there is: My friends and family. For them, if for no other reason, I'm glad to be back.
In a way, the trip felt too short. Three months seems like a lot to us Americans, but I only had a couple of weeks in each of the countries I visited, which doesn't even approach enough time to see everything I wanted to see. And mine was the shortest trip of any of the travelers I met on the road. For people from Australia, England, Scandinavia, Israel, three months is barely more than a vacation.
And yet it's long enough that I became a traveler, a strange in-between identity that's somewhere on the continuum between living life to the fullest and avoiding it like a champion, somewhere strongly to one side or the other but I'm not sure which. Some of what I learned is useless now that I'm back in the real world: that sleeping in a room with ten strangers isn't really that difficult, or even unpleasant, particularly if you can get a bed against the wall; that a fridge full of food that isn't yours is always kind of disgusting, even if it's clean and doesn't smell; that it's possible to hold an entire conversation in Anchorman quotes, English-language fluency optional. Some of what I learned is more useful than ever: that nice and friendly aren't necessarily synonyms, or even indicative of each other, pretty much at all; that how enjoyable a conversation is depends very little on what it's about and very much on who you're talking to; that meeting new people is sometimes as easy as walking up to strangers and introducing yourself. Some of it's just new facts: that there are no McDonald's in the entire country of Bolivia; that the alkaloids from coca leaves are best released with a pinch of baking soda.
Anyway. Now that I'm back in the U.S. this blog is going back into hibernation until the next great adventure. Goodbye for now, dear readers. It's been real.
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